Library - Mrs. McMahon & Mrs. Damato - Bennett Elementary School

Welcome to the Bennett Library

Vision:
The vision of the Bennett Library is to create a safe, welcoming environment in which all students can successfully access information,and encourage creative possibilities for their educational and informational needs as well as providing a variety of literary choices to inspire lifelong readers for fun.

Mission:
To create an environment of choice and possibilities, when it comes to inspiring students to a lifelong love of reading for fun.

To provide an environment that will develop positive learning experiences that will contribute to lifelong learning.

To work together with teachers, administrators and parents as encouraging,instructional partners to collaborate on educational goals.

To provide instructional literacy research that will result in authentic learning.

Check-out & Overdue Policy

Students may check out 4 books at a time as long as they don't have any that are overdue. Students will be notified of an overdue book at check out and given an overdue reminder if requested. Overdue reports will be run 2 times per grading period,and notices will be sent home at those times. When a book is more than one month overdue, a notice will be mailed home to the students' parent/guardian.

Red Dot Books
You may have noticed some of your older students (4th, 5th and maybe some 3rd graders), bringing home a library book with a red dot on the cover (near the Bennett bar code) that is not an AR marker. We do our best to mark books that have content that may not be appropriate or interesting for our younger readers. Being an elementary school library,we have the unique responsibility to provide books with age appropriate content ranging from kindergarten through 5th grade. A problem may occur when one of our younger readers has a higher reading level. For example, a second grader may have a 4th or a 5th grade reading level,but some of our books at that reading level may have content that is not appropriate or interesting for a second grade student to read. We use the red dots to let us know that we may need to help that younger reader find a more age appropriate book. In some cases we ask the student to bring us a note with his or her parents' OK if they are very interested in a specific book or series of books (for example: The Series of Unfortunate Events or Harry Potter). Once we have a note from home, we'll keep a record of it and they will be allowed to check out that specific book,books in that specific series or other red dot books.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us in the library.

We would like to thank you for sharing this information with your children. Our goal is to keep the Bennett Elementary School Library a warm, friendly welcoming environment and to share our love of books and reading with the students of Bennett!

birthday book

Bennett Birthday Books

"A book is a present you can open again and again"

Thank you to those who participated in our Bennett Birthday Book Program again this year! We raised over $1000! Participating students will be selecting their birthday books to add to our library collection during their library classes in November and they will be the first to check out the new books!

Thank you so much for supporting your children's love of reading and our Bennett Library!

Thank you so much for supporting your children's love of reading and our Bennett Library!

Bennett Students to Participate in the Virginia Readers Choice Awards!

Purpose

To encourage young readers to become better acquainted with contemporary books with outstanding literary appeal, to broaden students' awareness of literature as a lifelong pleasure, to encourage reading aloud in classrooms as a means of introducing reading for pleasure, and to honor favorite books and their authors.

History

Awards were given at one level for several years beginning with the 1981-82 school year.
The first year for multiple level awards was 1986-87 with awards for one Elementary book, one Middle School book, and one High School book.
Suggested titles are screened and those meeting eligibility requirements are considered along with committee nominations during the selection process.
Reading lists for the coming school year are announced each spring.

Voting Procedures

To become a qualified voter, a participant must be exposed to at least four of the nominated books at each level in their entirety by reading them himself, having them read aloud to him, or a combination of the two.

Students may participate in the Virginia Readers' Choice Program through our school library.

Each qualified voter has one vote for his/her favorite book at each level. A participant may vote at more than one level - for instance an elementary student may choose to vote for an elementary level title and a primary level title.

Our library staff will monitor the voting, and only one official tally sheet per program level (Primary, Elementary, etc.) may be submitted from each school. The total number of votes submitted from our school may not exceed the number of students qualified to vote from that school.

The winning book for each level is selected by popular vote of the participating students evaluating the books. Votes must meet the deadline date to be included in the popular vote.

For more information go to the Virginia State Literacy Association's Website - Virginia Readers' Choice.

Who:

4^th and 5^th grade students

What:

Read 9 pre-selected books and prepare a minimum of 4 questions for each book.
Books will be discussed in meetings.
Chapter books are provided by our school. You do not need purchase them, unless you are interested in keeping them.

When:

4^th and 5^th grade students will meet on selected Wednesday mornings from 8:00 AM until 9:00 AM.

Where:

Bennett Library

Why:

To explore various genres of literature with a twist of knowledge and fun.
To compete in a Battle of the Books competition against other elementary students.